Friday, May 31, 2013

A novel from one
of the country’s most prolific and popular YA authors, this book, set in New
York City on September 11th , shows us how the experiences of that
day profoundly changed one teen’s life and relationships.

Today is September
10, 2001, and Will a grade nine student, is spending the day at his father’s
workplace tomorrow.As part of a school
assignment, all the students in his class will be going to their parents work tomorrow,
but Will isn’t excited about it – he’d rather sleep in and do nothing with his
friends.His father doesn’t even have an
exciting job like his best friend James’s father who is a fireman.Will’s Dad works for an international trading
company and has to wake up early every morning to commute to his office on the
eighty-fifth floor in the south building of the World Trade Center in
Manhattan.Will doesn’t see his father
very often because of the hours he puts in at the office.He doubts that his dad will bother making
time for him tomorrow even when they are supposed to be spending the day
together.

In this fast-paced
and dramatic new novel by bestselling author Eric Walters, Will discovers a new
side of his father during an event that continues to affect the world.As Will’s new teacher says, tomorrow “might
be an experience that changes your entire life.”

My Review:

Will Fuller and
James Bennett played in a band together with a couple of other guys and they
were trying to come up with a name.When
Mrs. Phelps their history teacher mentioned the bubonic plague or Black Death,
they thought that might be a fitting name.Then they decided they weren’t black and seriously hoped nobody would
die, so back to the drawing board.Will
played bass and saxophone and James played the guitar.

The following day
the students would be working at their co-op placements and everyone was
excited about going to work with parents and other relatives.One girl was spending the day in the
emergency department as her Mom was a doctor.Another student was spending the day in court as their father was a
judge.James would be spending the day
at the fire department with his Dad.Poor Will thought he had the most boring and uninteresting placement of
all.Spending the day with his father at
his office in Manhattan where he worked for an international trading
company.He didn’t have much interest in
money markets and stocks.

September 11, 2001
– John, Will’s father had worked in the World Trade Center for the past twelve
years.Standing at 1360 feet each, each
tower was 110 stories, had 21, 180 windows, 104 passenger elevators and cost
over 1.5 billion dollars.Around 20,000
people worked in each of the two towers.John worked on the 85th floor of the South Tower.Once in John’s office, he had to take a phone
call so asked his secretary, Suzie to show Will around the place.

Everyone that Will
met in the office praised his father up to the roof, telling Will what a great
guy he was and that they were all very proud of him.Will thought to himself: “Proud wasn’t
usually a word that came to mind when I thought about my father.”You see, John was rarely home and never had
been, he was always at the office and in all of Will’s school years thus far,
John had maybe made it to four of his sports games.Will was disappointed in his father.

When Suzie
finished her tour they headed into John’s office and stood waiting until he
finished with his call.He finally hung
up and the three of them were chatting when suddenly there was a thunderous
explosion and a brilliant flash of light burst outside the windows.Will jumped backwards, bumping into Suzie,
almost knocking her off her feet.John
sprang from his chair and jumped away from the windows.They all looked at each other and, Suzie
asked: “What was that…what happened?”

“There was an
explosion of some kind and it’s snowing”, Will said, pointing out the
window.Unbelievably, it was
snowing!Will just stared at the big,
gigantic flakes but couldn’t understand why some of them were glowing red.They looked out the window and there, just
above them, the entire side of the North Tower, was a gaping hole!Everyone realized then that there had been an
explosion in the North Tower, almost at the top at the 90th
floor.Just as they were all trying to
figure out what had happened someone yelled from across the room: “It was an
airplane that hit the building, it’s on CNN!”People left the windows and ran to stand in front of the big screen t.v.
to watch CNN.The time the plane hit was
8:46 a.m.John, immediately ordered an
evacuation from their office even though the plane had not hit their
building.Quickly people packed up their
desks and headed for the stairwell.

Little did John
and Will know that the explosions weren’t yet over and that they would conduct
an act of bravery that day while almost losing their own lives.

I don’t think any
of us will ever forget September 11th.It is one of those moments in time where you’ll
always remember exactly what you were doing at the exact time that
happened.We All Fall Down was beautifully written and was fast-paced.I read it in one sitting, you simply won’t be
able to put it down, your eyes will be glued to the page.Thank you Mr. Walters for writing such an
entertaining book.

Marcus and his
sister are counting down the days until their father comes home from
Afghanistan.When the big day arrives,
the family is overcome by happiness and relief that he is safe, but as the days
pass Marcus begins to feel that there is something different about his
father.Barely sleeping, obsessed with
news from Afghanistan, and overly aggressive, his dad refuses to seek
counselling.Marcus knows post-traumatic
stress disorder affects many soldiers, and he needs to get his dad some help before
it is too late.

My Review:

Fifteen-year-old,
Marcus’s father is stationed in Afghanistan serving as part of the Special
Forces team.His mother, Carol and
younger sister, Megan live on the base which Marcus prefers.He feels more comfortable living there and
feels “how could anybody who didn’t have a parent serving overseas know what it
felt like for us?”Marcus feels he is
more with his kind than he would be living outside the base.

Megan has a lot of
trouble sleeping due to worry about her Dad and begins having night
terrors.That is somewhat rectified by
sleeping with her Mom in her bed, and she has a pillow with a picture of her
Dad’s face on it.Each night before she goes
to bed she would spritz the pillow with her Dad’s after shave lotion which
calmed her down a great deal.

To keep herself
busy and as free from worry as possible, Carol works at Wal-Mart a few hours a
week.When she is home she cleans every
surface in the house.Marcus often jokes
that they have the cleanest home on the base.

Waiting for this
tour of duty to be over is very difficult on the family.They have made a calendar that hangs on the
kitchen wall which counts down the days until his return.Each day, Megan crosses off one day and
announces to Carol and Marcus how many days are left.

Each day the
family waits for an e-mail or phone call from Afghanistan and they are worried
sick because it has been 3 weeks since they’d last heard anything.This is unusual and the longest their father
has ever gone without communicating with them.Then one day on the news they heard that a Canadian soldier has been
killed by an IED and several others were wounded.The family is heart-stricken thinking it
could be their father and that is why they haven’t heard from him in such a
long time.Fortunately for them, it wasn’t
him, but it was Marcus’s girlfriends father instead and Marcus had to deal with
that whole situation for the girls’ sake.

When Dad finally
returns home he is a changed man and is clearly suffering from Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder but fails to see that in himself.It is a very difficult period of time for the
rest of the family as they try to convince him that he needs counselling.

Wounded was written for a Grade 8 class
and was penned with honesty and tempered with consideration for the audience
for which it was written.I thoroughly
enjoyed it and read it in a couple of hours at a short 224 pages.Eric Walters is a patient and kind writer who
always keeps in mind the audience his book is geared for.

Wounded reminds us all to be very
thankful to the brave men and women who risk their lives every day for our
country.Next time you see a soldier,
remember to shake their hand and say thank you.

Anita Hughes’ Monarch Beach is an absorbing debut
novel about one woman’s journey back to happiness after an affair splinters her
perfect marriage and life – what it means to be loved, betrayed and to love
again.

When Amanda Blick,
a young mother and kind-hearted San Francisco heiress, finds her gorgeous French
chef husband wrapped around his sous-chef, she knows she must flee her life in
order to rebuilt it.The opportunity
falls into her lap when her (very lovable) mother suggests Amanda and her young
son, Max spend the summer with her at the St. Regis Resort in Laguna Beach.With the waves right outside her windows and
nothing more to worry about than finding the next relaxing thing to do, Amanda
should be having the time of her life and escaping the drama.But instead, she finds herself faced with a
kind, older divorcee who showers her with attention…and she discovers that the road
to healing is never simple.This is the
sometimes funny, sometimes bitter, but always moving story about the mistakes
and discoveries a woman makes when her perfect world is turn upside down.

My Review:

Amanda Blick
finished yoga class and headed to her husband, Andre’s restaurant to get a
strawberry muffin.What she found wasn’t
a muffin but instead Andre making love to his new sous chef, Ursula!This was a Tuesday that Amanda would never
forget.She hopped into her car, drove
to the post office and parked, then walked to the lake.She was still in her yoga clothes so didn’t
look out of place.

Sitting on the
bench, Amanda just sobbed.She and Andre
had been married for ten years and had an eight-year-old son, Max.Now Amanda understood what Andre was really
doing on Tuesdays when he told her he was going to the restaurant to “do the
books” and she felt so let down.She
thought back to just a few nights ago when she was happily ensconced on his arm
as they headed into the restaurant for their date night.She couldn’t even blame, Ursula for this, the
blame belonged to Andre.

Amanda had met
Andre in July just after she graduated from Berkley and they were engaged by
the end of the summer.She couldn’t
believe she was going to marry a sexy Frenchman who’d only been in American for
ten months.Amanda was
twenty-two-years-old and Andre was twenty-four.

Stephanie was one
of Amanda’s best friends and partner with Andre in their own French restaurant,
La Petite Maison.She headed over to
Stephanie’s house for a chat.Talking
with Stephanie, Amanda hoped to gain some insight into what was going on with
Andre.Amanda didn’t expect Stephanie to
confess to her that, Ursula was NOT the first woman he had been unfaithful with
over the past eight years.After a few
shots of tequila, a borrowed dress, shoes, and her make-up and hair done,
Stephanie shoved Amanda out her front door to go home and confront Andre.

After the
confrontation with Andre and his apologies and promises to Amanda that he’d
never do it again, she left and went to see her mother.Mom called the family lawyer to arrange a meeting
so Amanda could begin divorce proceedings.However, Andre was adamant that they were not going to divorce.

Amanda’s Mom,
Grace talked Amanda into spending the summer at Laguna Beach in
California.They would stay the St.
Regis Resort in the Presidential Suite!Grace was rich beyond rich and could afford a 5-star hotel for the
summer.When Amanda told Max where they
were going to spend their summer and that he could swim, learn how to surf and
then surf every day, he was ecstatic.

The St. Regis was
simply gorgeous and Amanda began to think this was perhaps the best way for her
to get over and forget Andre. There was
so much to do at St. Regis that you could literally keep yourself busy and
entertained twenty-four-hours-a-day and still not run out of things to do.But even having money and living in a 5-star
hotel can’t always buy you happiness.

When Amanda meets
Edward, an older man who has been divorced for five years, she thinks she’s
finally found someone she can rely on and trust but sometimes we don’t always
know people the way we think we do.

Monarch Beach was a fast-paced, racy,
roller-coaster ride of a read.It’s a
book about love, divorce, hope, loss, and finding ones way back to some sort of
normal that you can live with.I was so
glued that I read it in one sitting.I
can’t wait to read ‘Market Street.’

Thursday, May 30, 2013

A Southern novel
of family and antiques from the bestselling author of the beloved Saving CeeCee
Honeycutt.

Beth Hoffman’s
bestselling debut, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, won admirers and acclaim with its
heartwarming story and cast of unforgettable characters.Now her unique flair for evocative settings
and richly drawn Southern personalities shines in her compelling new novel, Looking for Me.

Teddi Overman
found her life’ passion for furniture in a broken-down chair left on the side
of the road in rural Kentucky.She
learns to turn other people’s castoffs into beautifully restored antiques, and
eventually finds a way to open her own shop in Charleston.There, Teddi builds a life for herself as
unexpected and quirky as the customers who visit her shop.Though Teddi is surrounded by remarkable
friends and finds love in the most surprising way, nothing can alleviate the
haunting uncertainty she’s felt in the years since her brother Josh’s mysterious
disappearance.When signs emerge that
Josh might still be alive, Teddi is drawn home to Kentucky.It’s a journey that could help her come to
terms with her shattered family and to find herself at last.But first she must decide what to let go of and
what to keep.

Looking for Me brilliantly melds
together themes of family, hope, loss, and a mature once-in-a-lifetime kind of
love.The result is a tremendously
moving story that is destined to make bestselling author Beth Hoffman a
novelist to whom readers will return again and again as they have withAdriana Trigiani, Fannie Flagg, and Joshilyn
Jackson.

My Review:

Thirty-six-year-old,
Teddi Overman lives in a nineteenth-century carriage house and owns her own
antique shop.She labels herself “an
antiques dealer and faux-finishing specialist.”Teddi takes other peoples old, decrepit, broken-down furniture and turns
them into the most beautiful pieces of antiques.In each piece she discovers “endless
possibilities…and a history.”

Teddi believed her
penchant for restoring old furniture began way back in the summer of 1964 when
she found an old antique chair in an overgrown ditch.She loved that chair so much that she
imagined the kind of life it might of had.She supposed it was a dining chair of some kind and wondered if it had
sat in a “fine home and seen lots of fancy dinner parties, birthday celebrations
and holiday feasts.”The arms of the
chair were curved and the back was shaped “like an urn.”Teddi so loved that chair that she claimed it
as hers right then and there and dragged it all the way home.

The relationship
between Teddi and her mother was somewhat strained.Always nit-picking at each other and Mom
never understood Teddi’s desire and passion for restoring furniture.The bond she had with her father was much
different, he understood Teddi’s desire for antiquing and always took an
interest in anything she did.

Teddi and her
brother, Josh, had always had a good relationship.When younger, Josh was very into hanging out
at the Ranger’s Station and took seriously poachers who came and killed animals
illegally.He loved learning about
survival in the woods and collected every manner of bird feather he could
find.Teddi often said he knew more than
the Ranger did but when he mysteriously disappeared, Teddi was beside herself
with grief.

After graduating
high school, Teddi’s parents gave her an old car she could drive around
in.Dad also gave her an envelope and
said that was just between the two of them.When Teddi opened the envelope in the privacy of her bedroom she found
twenty brand new fifty-dollar bills, a map, and a note that said: “This will
help you find your way.Love, Dad.”Teddi thought back to a conversation she’d
previously had with her Dad where he spoke to her about freedom and how the car
he’d given her was her “red, white and blue.”She realized Daddy wanted her to be happy and find her way in this world
doing something she truly loved.He
wanted her to have HER American dream.Teddi
then made plans to drive to Charleston to visit Mr. Palmer’s antique shop.She’d met him two years earlier when he’d
stopped by the side of the road to purchase a piece of furniture she had
restored.Before leaving he gave her his
card and told her to visit if she was even in the area.

Two days later,
Teddi was planning her trip and shortly thereafter set out for Charleston.Finding Mr. Palmer’s shop was easy but she
was appalled at the filth and disarray the shop was in.Over lunch, Mr. Palmer hired Teddi to work in
his shop and she was on her way to fulfilling her dream.

Looking for Me is filled with beautiful
characters and descriptions so vivid I could picture in my eye, Teddi’s shop
and the antiques that lay within.It’s a
beautiful story of love, loss, hope, and fulfilling ones dreams even when you
think the odds are stacked against you.Beth Hoffman has outdone herself and I’ll certainly be recommending Looking for Me to everyone.This is one of those books that you want to
read again and again.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

When fireman Jimmy
McMullen is killed in the line of duty, his wife, Jackie, and ten-year-old son,
Charlie, are devastated.Trusting the
healing power of family, Jackie decides to return to her childhood home on
Sullivans Island – a place of lush green grasslands, the heady pungency of
Lowcountry Pluff mud, and palmetto fronds swaying in gentle ocean winds.

Thrilled to have
her family back, matriarch Annie Britt promises to make their visit
perfect.Over the years, Jackie and
Annie, like all mothers and daughters, have had differences of opinion.But her estranged and wise husband, Buster,
and her best friend, Deb, are sure to keep Annie in line.She’s also got the flirtatious widowed physician
next door to keep her distracted.Captivated by the island’s natural charms, mother, daughter, and
grandson will share a memorable, illuminating summer.

My Review:

Jackie McMullen
was an army nurse stationed in Afghanistan for a seven-month tour when her
husband, Jimmy was killed.He was fireman
for the city of New York and fell through the floor when it collapsed in a
filthy, rat-infested tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.Jackie swore that Jimmy couldn’t be too far
away because she could “feel him, watching over me, over us.” They were very much in love and Jackie was
devastated.

Their 10-year-old
son, Charlie, was depressed and had idolized his Dad.Jimmy took Charlie everywhere on his days
off, they spent a lot of quality time together and losing his father was like
losing a part of himself.Charlie’s
despair was a huge concern for Jackie, no matter what she said or did, didn’t
seem to bring him around.Charlie was
truly traumatized.

It was Jimmy’s
Aunt Maureen who made Jackie realize that something had to be done.Aunt Maureen was unmarried and in her
sixties, and she was Charlie’s secondary caregiver when Jackie went
overseas.

Jackie’s Mom and
Dad were living apart and had been for eleven years.Jackie’s Mom, Annie, came and stayed for a
couple of weeks to help out and then returned home.Once she was gone, Buster, Jackie’s Dad
came.He worked his “grandfatherly magic
on Charlie,” and for a little while it seemed he was perking up.Buster took him to Museum of Natural History
one day and on another to the Yogi Berra Museum, where Yogi Berra himself
happened to be that afternoon.“He
signed a ball for Charlie that he carried around with him wherever he went.”

After Buster
returned home, Charlie’s depression returned.Jackie felt so sad and helpless, there was so little she could do for
him.So, right after the Fourth of July,
Jackie decided to head south to Sullivans Island where her parents and other
family and friends lived.Jackie was
putting her trust in the healing power of family.However, it won’t be an easy visit for Jackie
as she and her mother have had differences of opinion for years.She is hoping that her Dad and her Mom’s best
friend, Deb will help keep Annie in line and she’s got the flirtatious widowed physician
next door to keep her distracted as well.

Porch Lights celebrates the joys and
boundaries of families and storytelling.I’ll definitely be recommending this one.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Khaled Hosseini is
one of the most widely read and beloved novelists in the world.

His novels have
sold more than 38 million copies worldwide.Now, six years after A Thousand
Splendid Suns debuted at #1, spending fourteen consecutive weeks at #1 and
nearly a full year on the hardcover list, Hosseini returns with a book that is
broader in scope and setting than anything he’s ever written before.

A multigenerational-family
story revolving around brothers and sisters, it is an emotional, provocative,
and unforgettable novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and
how the choices we make resonate through generations.With profound wisdom, insight and compassion,
Hosseini demonstrates once again his deeply felt understanding of the bonds
that define us and shape our lives – and of what it means to be human.

My Review:

In 1952, Pari,
3-years-old and Abdullah, 10-years-old were told a story at bedtime about how
divs and jinns and giants used to roam the earth.A farmer named Baba Ayub lived in a village
called Maidan Sabz and every day he toiled hard to feed and care for his family
of 5 children: 3 sons and 2 daughters and his wife.His favourite child was his 3-year-old,
Quais.Quais was a little boy with blue
eyes and charmed anyone who met him while he worked his devlish laughter.One day a div came to their village from the
direction of the mountains and the earth shook with each of his footfalls.The villagers dropped everything and
ran.Whichever home the din tapped his
fingers on the roof of meant that family had to give up one of their children
to him.If they didn’t decide by the
following morning, then the din would take all the children in the house and
return to his moutaintop home.Baba Ayub
was beside himself with grief on how to decide which of his children to give
away in order to save the other four.He
finally wrote their 5 names on stones, deposited them into a bag, reached in
and pulled out one stone.It bore the
name of his beloved Quais.He cried,
shook, and bellowed at the sadness and injustice, but the din took, Quais away
to his mountaintop home never to be seen again.

Father had never
hit Abdullah before so when he did, tears of surprise came to his eyes.They were walking across the desert from
their village of Shadbagh to Kabul.Abdullah had lost his mother 3 years ago while she was giving birth to Pari.Now they had their stepmother, Parwana and
Abdullah wished he could love her the same way he loved his mother.We learn they are taking this trek across the
desert so father can sell Pari to a childless couple who were wealthy.The deal was brokered by his own
brother.Abdullah took this especially
hard for Pari was the very essence of his soul.

Parwana had a sad
life too, she has a 1-year-old son, Iqbal, but her second baby, Omar had died
of the cold winter before last.He was
only 2-weeks-old.Parwana and Abdullah’s
father had barely named him.He was one
of three babies that brutal winter had taken in Shadbagh.He knew Parwana loved her own children better
than she loved Abdullah and Pari, but most parents loved their own children
first, and he didn’t blame her for that, as to her, Abdullah and Pari were
another woman’s leftovers.

Father was getting
tired of pulling the wagon across the desert sand so Abdullah took over for a
while.They were going to Kabul too, so
father could work.Uncle Nabi, who was
Parwana’s older brother, was a cook and a chauffeur in Kabul.Once a month he drove from Kabul to visit
them in Shadbagh, his arrival announced by the honks of the big blue car he
drove.It was on his last visit that
Uncle Nabi told Father about the job.The rich people he worked for were building an addition to their home –
a small guesthouse in the backyard, complete with a bathroom, separate from the
main building – and Uncle Nabi had suggested they hire father, who knew his way
around a construction site.He said the
job would pay well and take a month to complete.

Abdullah new baby
Omar’s death bothered him constantly.If
he’d had more money then he would have been able to buy the baby warmer
clothing and keep the house heated.He
poured everything he had in him into every job he got as if this would help
atone for his lack of being able to properly provide for his family.

Pari, settles into
her new family with the wealthy couple, Nila and her rather strange husband,
Suleiman Wahdati.Nila is a wild and
provocative woman and Suleiman is quite introverted never having much to do
with Pari.Suleiman eventually suffers a
stroke and Nila picks up Pari and escapes to France where her mother was born
and leaves Nabi the chauffeur behind to care for him.

There are other
characters we meet in this story and each one is has a broken bond with
someone.It is a story of family and
what families can do to each other and how those disasters can reverberate down
through the generation to come.And the Mountains Echoed gracefully unravels
how tradition, culture, and sense of place affect the human heart, it
celebrates the joys and boundaries of storytelling.

Khaled Hosseini is
one of the most joyful and expansive writers around!I’ll be keeping this novel as part of my
permanent collection.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

As a kitchen maid –
the lowest of the low – she entered an entirely new world; one of stoves to be
blacked, vegetables to be scrubbed, mistresses to be appeased, and even
bootlaces to be ironed.Work started at
5:30 a.m. and went on until after dark.It was a far cry from her childhood on the beaches of Hove, where money
and food were scarce, but love and laughter never were.

Yet, from the gentleman
with a penchant for stroking the housemaid’s curlers, to raucous tea-dances
with errand boys, to the heartbreaking story of Agnes the pregnant under-parlourmaid,
Margaret’s tales of her time in service are told with wit, warmth and a sharp
eye for the prejudices of her situation.Brilliantly evoking the long-vanished world of masters and servants, Below Stairs is the remarkable true
story of an indomitable woman, who, though her position was lowly, never
stopped aiming high.

My Review:

Margaret Powell
was born in 1907 in Hove, and left school at the age of 13 to start
working.At 14, she got a job in a hotel
laundry room, and year later went into service as a kitchen maid, eventually
progressing to the position of cook, before marrying a milkman named
Albert.She and Albert had 3 sons
together.

Poor all of her
life, Margaret always made the best of a bad situation.Women in service as cooks and parlourmaids in
those days were considered the lowliest of the low and often referred to as “skivvy’s.”Margaret was a hard worker and when she
became a cook, she had the right to “order” the under kitchen cook to do chores
but poor Margaret didn’t have it in her and would find herself doing the job on her own.She just didn’t like to order people around
although she’d been ordered around her entire life.

Being in service
was an extremely difficult job that came with very low pay, few days off, and
long working hours.What these women did
for these people with a higher up status was unappreciated as far as I was concerned.Most of them weren’t treated any better than
a lot of animals.Their lodgings were
often atrocious but they didn’t have much choice and were forced to make do with
what they had.

A very interesting
look into this world of service back in the 1920’s.I know today’s nannies and housekeepers are
treated a whole lot better than these poor women were and the working
conditions have certainly improved for the better.

Friday, May 24, 2013

In 1994, Anchee
Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the
violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution.“Red Azalea” became an international bestseller and propelled her career
as a successful critically acclaimed author.Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us
the next chapter, an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking
deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of
America, without language, money, or a clear path.It is a hard and lonely road.She teaches herself English by watching
Sesame Street, keeps herself afloat working five jobs at once, lives in
unheated rooms, suffers rape, collapses from exhaustion, marries poorly and
divorces.But she also gives birth to
her daughter, Lauryann, who will inspire her and finally root her in her new
country.Min’s eventual successes- her writing career, a daughter at Stanford,
a second husband she loves – are remarkable, but it is her struggle throughout
toward genuine selfhood that elevates this dramatic, classic immigrant story to
something powerfully universal.

My Review:

The Cooked Seed picks up 20 years after
Min wrote “The Red Azalea”, her memoir of growing up in China during the
violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution.The story left off as she fled her homeland, but a whole new life was
just beginning.

Speaking no
English, Anchee comes to American, she has no money, and no plan as to what she
is going to do.She teaches herself
English by watching, of all things, ‘Sesame Street.’

On August 31,
1984, Anchee landed in Chicago with $500 of borrowed money in her wallet, she
was 27 years old.Prior to leaving
Shanghai she worked at the Shanghai Film Studio.She was considered a “cooked seed” – no chance
to sprout.

Anchee’s cousin,
whom she’d never met before, picked her up at the airport in Chicago.They were unable to communicate with each
other as Anchee spoke Mandarin and he spoke Cantonese.However, he was kind enough to allow her to
temporarily stay at his student apartment until she was able to find her own
accommodations.

Anchee had come to
Chicago to study at the School of Art Institute.The foreign-student adviser was upset with
her because she had indicated on her application that her English was
excellent.Anchee confessed she was guilty
of lying and was willing to accept any punishment the Art Institute might want
to met out.She was sent to the
intensive tutorial class held at the University of Illinois.The program cost $500 which she had to borrow
from an Aunt she’d never met.

The Art Institute
asked Anchee what type of roommate she’d prefer.She told them that anyone who spoke English,
and wouldn’t mind her silence.That was
when she met and made her first friend, Takisha, in America.Anchee found the dorm room to be very
luxurious considering where she had come from.She found the fact that hot water was available 24 hours a day to be
incredible considering she’d never grown up with that luxury.She said she “felt like a princess” because
for the first time in her life she would get to sleep on a mattress.

Next, Anchee began
looking for a job.The first day she
spent hours walking and walking downtown Chicago visiting every single Chinese
restaurant she could find but was turned away at every single one.She finally ended up visiting the school’s
job placement office.Unfortunately, the
majority of the jobs posted required English which Anchee had not yet
mastered.Then she saw a job listing for
a model with the school’s fashion design department.A little old lady received her in the office
and hired her on the spot.She was so
excited and the job paid $7.00 per hour which was more than Anchee’s “monthly”
salary in China!She then moved all her
courses to the evenings so she’d be able to apply for more jobs.Soon her schedule was full.She became an attendant for the student
gallery and a helper at the admissions office.These jobs would not be Anchee’s last, there were many more to come.

The Cooked Seed is a powerful look at
what we humans can achieve when our heart is in the right place.I would highly recommend this to anyone and
would actually like to read this again.

Malaya, 1951, Yun
Ling Teah, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks
solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands.There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese
garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled
former gardener of the emperor of Japan.Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to
create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in camp.Aritomo refuses but agrees to accept Yun Ling
as his apprentice “until the monsoon comes.”Then she can design a garden for herself.

As months pass,
Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to the gardener and his art, while all
around them a communist guerilla war rages.But the Garden of Evening Mists remains a place of mystery.Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave
Japan?And is the real story of how Yun
Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?

Zoe Fleming is an
American attorney working with an NGO devoted to combating child sexual assault
in Lusaka, Zambia.When an adolescent
girl is raped in the dark of the night and delivered by strangers to the
hospital, Zoe’s organization is called in to help.

Working alongside
Zambian police officer Joseph Kabuta, Zoe learns that the girl’s assailant was
not a street kid or a pedophile but the son of a powerful industrialist with
deep ties to the Zambian government.As
the prosecution against him grinds forward, hampered by systemic corruption and
bureaucratic inertia, Zoe and Joseph’s search for the truth takes them from
Lusaka’s roughest neighborhoods to the wild waters of Victoria Falls, to the
AIDS-ridden streets of Johannesburg and the splendour of Cape Town.

As the rape trial
builds to a climax and sends shockwaves through Zambian society, Zoe must
radically reshape her assumptions above love, loyalty, family, and especially,
the meaning of justice.

My Review:

The above
description does the story justice and there isn’t much more that I can add
other than to say this is a must-read as well.Very, very good.

Against a backdrop
of rebellion and intrigue, love between Javier Cartena, commander of insurgent
Mexican forces, and Calypso Searcy, an American novelist at the pinnacle of her
career, sizzles with passion across a broad sweep of history.Encompassing time from the Conquest of the
1550s to the present, the story races across space as well, from the forests of
Chiapas to the city of Paris.There, an
international investigative reporter named Hill picks up the swiftly vanishing
trail of Calypso’s disappearance, and unwittingly becomes involved in one of
the great dramas of the twentieth century and one of the great love stories of
any age.

My Review:

Fiesta of Smoke reads like a history
book with a deeply passionate love story interwoven throughout the story.From Paris to California to Mexico with great
learning potential, the book powerfully unravels how tradition, culture, and
sense of place affect the human heart.It brings to life the power of the story and at the same time challenges
us to discover all there is to know about Mexico and the Conquest of the 1500s
to the present.

Steeped in the
history of Mexico, you will come to realize that to fully understand this story
is a profound discovery and it’s the very exact opportunity offered to us, the
readers.

Aside from the
Mexican history and its gleaming landscape, is the most beautiful and most
powerful love story between the two main protagonists: Calypso Searcy and
Javier Cartena.Calypso is an American
author at the height of her career who writes under the pen name, David
Rockland.Javier is commander of insurgent
Mexican forces.Their love is one that
women the world over wish they had and strive to find.

Fiesta of Smoke was a beautiful piece of
narrative that looks into the mysteries of days gone-by and the joys of the
human heart.Ms. Still has penned a rare
must-read treat!I will definitely be
keeping this as part of my permanent collection as it is the type of book that
I want to experience again and again and again.Well-done!!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

When Alexandra
Kuykendall became a mother it was the beginning of a soul-searching journey
that took her into her past and made her question everything she’d experienced –
and a lot of what she hadn’t.The only
daughter of a single, world-traveling mother and an absent artist father,
Alexandra shares her unique quest to answer universal questions.Am I lovable?Am I loved?Am I loving?

In short, moving
episodes, Alexandra transports readers into a life that included a childhood in
Europe, a spiritual conversion marked more by questions than answers, a
courtship in the midst of a call to be with troubled teens, marriage and motherhood
– and always, always, the questions of identity.Through her personal journey, women will discover
their own path to understanding the shape of their lives and a deeper sense of
God’s intimate presence within it.

My Review:

Alexandra
Kuykendall remembers being in Barcelona, Spain in the hot July heat when she
was just nine-years-old.She wanted to
know who she was and where she came from.Alex was good at holding things in, so she willed herself to push her
nerves and excitement down, piling them onto the mountain of questions and unease
she’d been holding in all her short life.She was hoping that today would be a new beginning as she was in a cab
with her Mom on her way to meet her father for the very first time.

Alex wondered why
she’d never been told that her father lived here before she and her mother
arrived for their vacation.And, what
had prompted her mother to look him up in the phone book just yesterday?Why had she arranged this meeting?

Alex and her mom
were on the back end of a yearlong journey.They had left the United States the summer before to move to Italy,
where her mom found a job teaching English in a small factory town.For an entire year they lived abroad but Alex
missed the United States, especially Saturday morning cartoons and french fries
and she was tired of being an outsider in a small town.Finally, mom and Alex moved back to
Seattle.

When they finally
arrived at the café, Alex was sorely disappointed in the man who was supposed
to be her father.She thought all dads
were in their mid-30’s who wore business suits, had clean-cut hair and looked
like models in the JC Penny catalogue.This was not the man she met.

He was her father
alright, but not at all what she longed for, hoped for, nor was expecting.Alex felt he wasn’t enough.She also felt it terribly unfair that she
should end up with a second hand model.

What it was time
to leave her father stood up and hugged her from the side.Alex felt uncomfortable and the hug felt
forced.She expected to feel a
familiarity with the man, but she didn’t.But, she was still hopeful that when the awkwardness passed, when he
knew her, she would know what it was to have a father’s love.That huge, gaping hole would be filled in.

In her teenage
years, Alex was introduced to God and began to explore her religious beliefs
which eventually became a big part of her.The relationship with her father remained sporadic over the years and
did she ever truly feel loved and wanted by him?Did she feel lovable?The author does a wonderful job at getting
these points across to the reader.

The Artist’s Daughter gracefully
unravels one woman’s life story in ways that the reader will be able to relate
too. Alexandra Kuykendall explores the joys and boundaries of families and
storytelling.

WELCOME

Welcome to my little part of the web! The Book BagLady (that's me), reviews books for you! I like all types of genres: fiction, non-fiction, literature, women's novels, light romance, memoirs, biographies and autobiographies. The only type of books you won't see me review are: sci-fi; werewolf/vampire type novels; westerns; and heavy romance.
There is nothing better than spending a lazy day with a good book and a nice hot cup of tea!
I always try to be fair when reviewing books and though I particularly might not be too fond of one, it doesn't mean you won't like it.
Hope you'll have a gander at my book reviews and leave me a comment anytime you feel inspired to do so. Looking forward to meeting you all!
If anyone needs to email me, they may do so at:
nellie94[at]gmail[dot]com